Cory And Substrate

I know alot of people recommend sand. It is a possibility that I could change to sand( thinking black sand so fish stand out more) but I have no experience using sand as a substrate.

I like to syphon my gravel with every water change to keep the water as clean as it can be. How easy is sand to syphon/keep clean and will shrimp and nerite snail be ok with sand.... also I have been looking at the African dwarf frogs they look interesting any thoughs on the frogs.

Cories can be on small sized gravel as long as it's smooth rounded gravel. Water quality is more important than having sand.

That being said, cories are one of my favorite fish and I switched my tanks to sand to make them happy. Now that i have had sand I'll never use gravel again. They love nosing around in the sand and it's no harder to clean than gravel. Just different.

To clean sand I poke/gently stir it up a bit to get the floaty bits up in the water column. I rubber band a chopstick to my gravel vac for this. I also greatly over filter which keeps most stuff from settling on the bottom in the fist place.

The fish I see in your tank, look not temperature correct for curtain cory, the only cory that I would think likes those temperatures are Pygmy Cory, but they do not grow big. Whats the temperature on your aquarium? Neon Tetras like colder temperatures like 75F˚, I would not recommend changing substrates, for it could stress the fish majorly and could cause major ammonia. What size is your tank?

I just realized I totally missed your question about African dwarf frogs. I have never kept those but I have read many times on this forum that they don't compete well with fish for food and they should be in a species only tank.

The fish I see in your tank, look not temperature correct for curtain cory, the only cory that I would think likes those temperatures are Pygmy Cory, but they do not grow big. Whats the temperature on your aquarium? Neon Tetras like colder temperatures like 75F˚, I would not recommend changing substrates, for it could stress the fish majorly and could cause major ammonia. What size is your tank?

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Bronze, Panda, S & P, Peppered, and Pygmy Cories are just a few Cories that are temp. compatible with Neon Tetras, WCMM, and Dwarf Gourami(I would keep this tank at 72-74'F). As on the frogs they need higher temps.(78-80'F) like Bettas so they are a no.

Cleaning sand is quite easy. Instead of sticking the siphon in like you do with gravel, you just hold the tube over the sand and skim it over the sand so poop or other debris goes up the tube but not the sand. Then use a net or a similar object to rake the sand at the same spot (this is to keep from gas pockets from forming). After you raked the sand, use the siphon and again skim it over the same spot to get as much junk as possible. Then, move to a different spot, skim, rake, skim, and then move to another spot. And then repeat the process again until you feel you've finished cleaning the tank.

Shrimp and snails are okay with sand. I don't know about frogs though.